“My gate broke…” I heard a dear woman say yesterday, with a shy sadness in her voice.
It came after a string of other problems, and in her voice I heard frustration and helplessness. I immediately thought it wasn’t just about the gate of her house. Not for me.
“My gate broke” and that image started to haunt me.
It reminded me of myself and of all the women who lived their whole lives with a broken gate and still kept letting guests in, gathering children, welcoming pain, and offering love.
It made me think of so many other gates breaking in my life. And too often,they break in silence.
When my gate breaks,
my heart might break,
my boundaries break,
my balance breaks.
And there I am, a quiet woman, with the hinges of my soul hanging,
making barricades out of my body and false doors out of smiles,
so that no one sees how exposed I really am.
For me, a gate isn’t just a piece of wood or metal. A gate is the boundary.
Between what I allow to come toward me and what I strive to keep away.
It’s my invisible limit, the one nobody sees but I know it’s there.
The gate is the place where I say “Not now.”, “I can’t anymore.”, “This is too much.”
It’s the space between “inside” and “outside.”
Between “mine” and “everyone’s.”
When I heard her say her gate broke, I felt, as I always do when people open up to me, that she was speaking to me too, without even knowing.
And I realized how many gates I’ve had broken in my life. Some with a loud crash. Others in silence.
Some under the weight I was never meant to carry. Others, simply, from exhaustion.
The gate between me and the world has broken so many times…
When I said “yes” out of fear of being abandoned.
When I let myself be used, because I was afraid of being “too much.”
When I kept giving, even when I was exhausted, just to avoid rejection.
When I shut down and told myself nothing’s worth fixing anymore.
I’ve had broken gates everywhere.
In my soul. On the edge of courage.
The gate to my own body, after it was too often ignored.
The gate to my dreams, after decades of living for others.
And I know how much repairs cost.
They cost money.
But mostly, they cost time, energy, peace, dignity.
They cost explanations. They cost awkward glances.
They cost the feeling that I’m asking for help again. That I couldn’t manage on my own. Again.
A broken gate means everything is exposed.
The cold comes in. Wild animals have no barrier. Anyone can intrude.
It means insecurity, vulnerability, enormous effort to protect myself.
It means I must always be on alert, I can’t relax, can’t let my guard down.
I keep my eyes on the gate all the time.
And I know something else:
I haven’t often allowed myself to fix my gate.
I thought I had to wait until I had money, until I found the right specialist, until I had time, until someone came to help.
I stayed like that out of shame.
Or worse, because I started getting used to living like that, with the gate broken, propped against the fence, tied with wire.
I’ve been there many times. With a gate leaning on my soul, temporarily held by old promises and deep fears.
Sometimes I waited for someone else to come fix the problem.
I hoped that if I was “good enough,” “quiet enough,” “useful enough,” I’d deserve a new gate.
But I’ve slowly and painfully come to understand that no one’s coming to fix the gate for me.
That I have to decide where the world ends and I begin.
That I’m allowed to say: “That doesn’t get past the gate.”
That I don’t have to apologize for the limits marked by my gate.
That I can lock it. Close it. Rebuild it with my own hands. Wrap it in barbed wire or electrify it if I want to.
And still, because the world got used to my gate being broken, sometimes someone still comes and shakes it — to see if it’s really fixed.
Maybe I’m not the only one with a broken gate.
Maybe today your gate broke too.
Maybe you haven’t told anyone about it.
Maybe you don’t even know where to start.
Maybe it’s an invisible one:
The gate that protected your dream from the voices saying “it’s not realistic.”
The gate that shielded your child from a world too harsh.
The gate between you and an absent partner, a sick parent, a heavy past.
And maybe, like me, you repaired it yourself. With some wire, with a prayer, with a late-night cry.
Or maybe you left it as it was, and like me, you learned to live without borders.
To receive whatever comes, even when it hurts.
But I want to say to myself first, but also to you, from the depths of my heart as a woman who’s lived with shattered gates and is learning to mend them:
I’m allowed to have boundaries.
I’m allowed to rebuild all that was destroyed, in my own way.
I’m allowed to shut the door in the faces of those who came to steal.
I’m allowed to protect my life, my body, my time, my heart.
And most of all, I’m allowed not to feel guilty for wanting a strong gate. Not one that cages me,
but one that honors me.